


Aftermath

by AlterEgon



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: Gen, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the voyage home after his first encounter with Moby Dick, Captain Ahab fights to come to terms with his situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_alchemist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/gifts).



> Dear the_alchemist,  
> Here's a little treat for you - I hope you enjoy it.

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah

The ship swayed on the waves, and her Captain marked every time she rocked back and forth in his mind.

Once, the gentle motion of had been soothing, a constant in his life -  a life in which he had spent more time on the sea than on land. It had been something that he hardly ever noticed anymore except when it was suddenly gone when he set foot on dry land, or when it turned into the more violent shaking of a storm, when waves and winds buffeted the ship and tossed her back and forth like a ball in the hands of a careless child.

Now, each roll of the waves was agony, sending a red-hot lance of pain shoot through him, ensuring that he would not for an instant forget just what had been done to him.

The Captain should be up there on deck, commanding his ship, not lie helplessly in his hammock, suppressing a sound of pain every time his position shifted. He should have been the last reason for the ship to turn back early, to let down everyone who relied on the full hold they were supposed to bring home.

Another shift of his hammock, and the ferocious pain in a limb that was no longer even there renewed its onslaught, making him grind his teeth to avoid drawing attention to himself. He would not let any of the crew get a glimpse of the true depth of his suffering.

With it, again and again, came the mental anguish of his loss, knowledge of what he had been and of what he would never be again. A captain on his ship needed to stand firmly against the swell of the sea, secure on his feet even in the worst of weather. None knew that better than him, who had spent so many years of his life on water.

Balancing out the movement of the planks below him had become second nature to him, his footing as secure as if he was taking a stroll with his young wife on a Sunday afternoon spent ashore, even in the roughest of weather.

He could already see the shaking heads, the pitying glances spared for him if, in future, he would drag himself along step by insecure step on a peg leg or a crutch, or both, trying to navigate the length of the treacherously swaying deck – if he ever ventured on board of a ship at all, that was, if anyone would let him, damaged as he was, command another ship. And who would, if they had other, whole, men to pick instead?

More still. Whaling was his life. He was used to going out in one of the boats, riding at the front of it, harpoon in hand, his own ship's harpooneer - and a good one at that. That, of course, was what had gotten him into this situation to begin with, when another captain might have remained safely on board of his vessel.

It would have been better for him to drown outright in that encounter, as so many others had, or to die in the wake of it, from the shock, the blood loss, rot claiming his body – as so many others had, as well. It would have been better for his young wife, freeing her to find happiness with another man that she would never have with him – probably not before and most certainly not now. It would have been better for his son, too, to grow up with a father who had died at sea, than a father who drew stares of pity or disdain.

But he had not died, and it was unlikely to happen now, after so much time had passed.

If that whale, that – creature, that devil – had tried to destroy his life without actually drowning him, it could not have done so more efficiently. It took a whole body to do the work that was all he knew, all he could ever care to do.

What had he done to deserve such punishment? For surely it must have been divine intervention, striking him so aptly, so effectively, crushing everything that had ever meant anything to him.

But wait—the wrongness of that conclusion hit him with a sudden force that would have sent him reeling if he had not already been lying down.

It was true that God was known to have made use of the whale, the leviathan, as a reminder that He was not to be disregarded. But was Jonah not spit out again in one piece, surely shaken by the experience but essentially unharmed?

This creature that had turned out to be the scourge of many a whaler already certainly had nothing to do with Him – quite the opposite. He repeated his earlier thoughts, tasting them carefully in his mind and letting them merge with a new flood of agony that threatened to drown him as an ill-considered movement in the excitement of the moment jostled what was left of his leg.

Not a whale, not a creature sent to mete out divine punishment, but a demon, a devil. That was what Moby Dick must be – an abomination let loose in the oceans of this world to wreak as much havoc and destruction as he could, to strike out, to leave behind death and – where death would not come – suffering that would last even when the wounds left by his attack had long healed.

A devil himself, or devil-sent. It did not matter.

Either could be bested by a man with sufficient determination, and determination was one thing that he was not missing and that no one and nothing could take from him if he did not let them. And there, he thought, he had finally found the reason why he had come out it alive.

He may have been marked by Moby Dick, but their battle was far from over.

The tide of pain spread out again from where his leg should have been, but this time he did not fight it. He embraced it with grim resolve, let it fill him as he summoned all the hate that he could muster for that hellish creature and let them merge into one to give him a strength that he had not felt since he had first come back to his senses in his hammock and realised the implications of what had been done to him – or, possibly, ever. Bolstered by it, he would fight his way back up after this blow that had crushed him right into the ground.

In time, he would be back on his ship, commanding not so much a whaler but an avenger, with the main and foremost objective of bringing down the white devil that haunted these seas.

Certainly there were those he could convince that his abilities as a captain were unimpaired by his injury and the physical limitations that would come with it. He would consider his words well, and he would prove to them that he was still a man to be reckoned with.

He would certainly need a replacement for his leg. His hands had to be free to wield a lance or harpoon if he was going to bring down that devil. The thought of standing on a wooden peg, however, like some common—a sudden idea interrupted his mind's renewed downward plunge.

Not wood, not for him.

A whale had taken his leg, a whale would restore it. Let his leg be fashioned of whalebone, a symbol for all to see.

Then, as soon as his stump had healed enough to bear any weight on it, he would start working on mastering the new limb, and he would not stop before he was ready to set sail again and bring the vengeance that he had just sworn to Moby Dick, meeting the beast on his terms and, certainly, coming out victorious.

Oh yes, one day they would meet again, man and whale, and he would be prepared.

One day, he would bury his harpoon there, right by the one he had already left sticking in Moby Dick's flank, and would watch the hot life-blood run from the creature and disperse in the churning waters of the sea. He would watch it in its death throes, and triumph.

He may have been hurt, crippled, weakened by his injury, but he was not dead yet – and for as long as he had some life left in him, Moby Dick would have a mortal enemy. Surely the mere sight of him would serve as a constant reminder to his crew in future that they were chasing not only the whales they hunted for a living, but also destined to pursue one higher goal.

There was not enough space even in the vast oceans of the world for Ahab and Moby Dick at the same time.

In the end, one of them would lie dead, and he would make certain that it would not be him.

For the first time in what felt like years, the captain felt the ghost of a cold smile tug at his lips.


End file.
